Helpful Score: 1
Well, I've certainly never read anything like this before! It is such a strange tale. Shakespeare, the English bard, wrote that life is, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
So it is with this novel tale. The narrator is himself lost in his head, where he contemplates his life and those of the people around him. While he contemplates, he speaks of himself in third person singular, yet he also speaks to himself. It is jarring, at first, because it takes a long time, both to understand what is going on, and to sort out what is real and what is not. This is a tale full of sound and fury, indeed. There is war. The narrator is Polish, during the invasion and occupation by Germany. That alone is enough to shatter minds. But our narrator and main character, Oskar, was already living in another world. Despite that, he manages to survive where so many die. He is the character who plays the titular drum, a drum he plays to the beat of life around him, for that is how he deals with his own mental incongruity, his place in life, and war. And, although he is intelligent and well read, he pretends to have a mental age of three, which allows him to do things most people would not be allowed to do. He knows well that he is faking, but so do we all. He rarely speaks, and never of his true thoughts. He allows his drum to speak for him. As he is also the narrator, he translates his drumming for us. Would that I had his genius to understand the insensate drumming in my own head.
So it is with this novel tale. The narrator is himself lost in his head, where he contemplates his life and those of the people around him. While he contemplates, he speaks of himself in third person singular, yet he also speaks to himself. It is jarring, at first, because it takes a long time, both to understand what is going on, and to sort out what is real and what is not. This is a tale full of sound and fury, indeed. There is war. The narrator is Polish, during the invasion and occupation by Germany. That alone is enough to shatter minds. But our narrator and main character, Oskar, was already living in another world. Despite that, he manages to survive where so many die. He is the character who plays the titular drum, a drum he plays to the beat of life around him, for that is how he deals with his own mental incongruity, his place in life, and war. And, although he is intelligent and well read, he pretends to have a mental age of three, which allows him to do things most people would not be allowed to do. He knows well that he is faking, but so do we all. He rarely speaks, and never of his true thoughts. He allows his drum to speak for him. As he is also the narrator, he translates his drumming for us. Would that I had his genius to understand the insensate drumming in my own head.
Helpful Score: 1
It is said that great works of literature depend on character development, not so much on the plot and the story itself. Well, this is a case in point. The whole book is sustained by the central character of Oskar, a wicked, depressed, desperate man seeing how his world crumbles apart and he has to build a life for himslef. As another reviewer aptly put it, he is the lonely voice crying in the wilderness. Oskar is a very solitary man with a great disadvantage, one that by sheer willpower he turns every time into an advantage, a means for surviving in a careless, cold world. Oskar never gives up, never surrenders, he finds a way to survive after every setback, and terrifying setbacks he experiences.
I think this book had to be written in the form of magical realism, because the pure realism would have been insufferable: the tragedies that occur are beyond telling them.
Not an easy read, it is most rewarding, for it paints a wide picture of the human experience, precisely what great literature is about.
I think this book had to be written in the form of magical realism, because the pure realism would have been insufferable: the tragedies that occur are beyond telling them.
Not an easy read, it is most rewarding, for it paints a wide picture of the human experience, precisely what great literature is about.
Helpful Score: 1
ONE OF THE GREATEST LITERARY ADVENTURES OF OUR TIME
